State-Owned Enterprises in South Africa

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) have the ability to shape industrial policy, the potential to transform economies by investing in the provision of basic services and stimulate new industries. It is fair to deduce that how these entities are deployed is a critical indicator of a state’s directionality. This chapter traces how SOEs reflect South Africa’s evolving political economy, from a racist national capitalism, an indecisive developmental state, through a decade of state capture, to a weak strategic vision of how they can drive national economic development. The chapter highlights the obduracy of the mineral-energy complex and its enclave nature that lends itself to corrupted governance and assigning SOEs conflicted mandates for social and economic development. The current crisis of South Africa’s SOEs is a signifier of political leadership that has made a series of ideological missteps amidst a legacy of rent-seeking behaviours that began during the apartheid era, and continued into the post-1994 era.